Due to the greed of those handing our money, at the banks and the stock exchanges, across the world, coupled with the stupidity of our politicians who could easily have predicted this occasion, my mantra of the majority suffering as a result of the shortcomings of the minorities is yet again justified. Now, 60 years after it was common for people to repair and, mend rather than throw way and buy new, has come to haunt the young people of this generation who have never been trained to live in paucity. My generation, even the boys could darn socks and carry out other repairs right across-the-board, because it was economically essential. These young people today have been born into a throw away society, which should never have been allowed to persist, because of the waste of the world’s resources. It has been another exercise in greed, where the manufacturer would have lost output if the household products were repairable.
I was fortunate to live in those years because during the war I was able to repair my socks and other garments, because all I was earning in those initial months, was 10 shillings a week, out of which I had to buy food because I was hungry. The generous government after almost 6 years of war, threw me out onto the street without a job and little chance of one because I was only one of many thousands in the same situation. However, like most of my generation, I had been taught to use tools, with the result, when my children went to parties with their schoolmates, whose families were better off than ourselves, I was able to make dolls houses, dolls, and wooden jigsaw’s, all unattainable in the shops, to take as presents, as my children would be returning home with any number of presents that they had received at the party.
My generation couldn’t afford to have decorators, gardeners, and rarely electricians at times of serious problems. I now find that people are buying material in order to make clothes, which my wife did, and more of them are doing home decoration. This sudden financial change has been too sudden for the young people to be able to grasp exactly the effects that this is having upon them. The learning curve is too steep, and the old principles too embedded for change to be easy. They will have to learn economy the hard way.